Code: DEKA
by ShinkisRule
Summary: The Men in Black and Forever Knights have been in an alliance all along...
1. Prologue

Prologue

"Agent 42, come in. This is Enoch. Over."

"Agent 42 speaking. Have you reached the boy? Over."

"Confirmed. Over."

"Do you have it? Over."

"I do indeed, Agent 42. Over."

"Excellent. Send it to us immediately. Over."

"I am setting the coordinates for the launch. Over."

"When will the Omnitrix reach us? Over."

"It should be at your headquarters by 0100 tomorrow. Over."

"You've served the Men in Black well, Enoch. Project Deka is well underway. Over and out."


	2. Chapter 1

**What?! The Men in Black and the Forever Knights working together?! And Enoch just gave them the Omnitrix?! WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON?!?!**

Code: DEKA

By ShinkisRule

Chapter 1

"Benjamin Tennyson! Get out of bed!"

Ben moaned. What made Grandpa so angry that he had to use his full name? It was seven in the morning, and Ben never got up before nine during summer. Unless, of course, there was some alien lurking around, but even then, he still made an effort to get his ten hours of sleep.

"Why?" Ben whined into his pillow.

"NOW!" Grandpa snapped.

"But I'm tiiiired!"

Gwen pulled Ben's pillow from under his head and hit him with it.

"This is serious, Ben!" she scowled, "Someone broke into the Rustbucket last night!"

"That's not my problem," Ben said, swiping back his pillow, "The guy probably realized there's nothing worth stealing in this old junker and left. Now leave me alone."

"Don't make get out the airhorn!!" Gwen yelled, "Look at your wrist, Ben!"

Ben moaned and lifted his right arm.

"What am I looking for…?" He asked, still half-asleep.

"YOUR OTHER WRIST, DOOFUS!!"

"I'm right here," Ben mumbled, "You don't have to yell…"

Ben stared at his other wrist, still unsure of what Gwen and Grandpa were so riled up about. Why did they want him to…?

Ben's head shot up as he suddenly figured it out.

"Oh, no!!" he screamed, "It's gone!! The Omnitrix is gone!!!"

**

Yumi's eyes groggily opened as the sun began shining through her window. She turned over in her bed and pulled the covers over her face. _Stupid sun,_ she thought. She was having such a nice dream. Sissi was just about to fall into the Digital Sea. Why did the sun have to come up and spoil it for her? Yumi tried to get back to sleep and hopefully finish the dream. Sadly, that was never how it worked with her, and her next dream would probably be about Amish bunnies or something weird like that.

Just as she started to fall asleep, her cell phone started ringing. She groaned and picked it up.

"Yumi!" said Jeremie, sounding super awake as usual.

"Ugh…" Yumi moaned, "Jeremie, do you know what time it is?"

"Yeah, I know, it's one in the morning."

"One in the--?! What?! I thought it was around seven! Then why's it so bright out?"

"A meteorite just landed in your backyard!" Jeremie said, annoyingly giddy, "It should get darker in a second, though."

"Okay…" Yumi mumbled, her eyes growing more comfortable as the brightness faded, "Yeah, that's fascinating, Jeremie… You called just to tell me that?"

"It's very fascinating," said Jeremie, ever the nerd, "It wasn't just to tell you. I called because I was wondering if perhaps you'd wanna… Oh, I don't know, step outside and get it for me, maybe take a few pictures?"

"Why?"

"Because I've never gotten to look at a meteorite before! This could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! Come on! Please, Yumi? Pleeeaaase??"

"How'd you even know it was in my backyard?"

"I saw it fly over my house earlier and I decided to track it down," said Jeremie, "Lucky for me, it ended up at your house."

"How'd you track it?" Yumi asked.

"In a super-clever-scientific way. You wouldn't understand. Now _please_ can you get it for me?"

"Jeremie… Can't it wait till morning?"

"By then something might have happened to it! Pleeeaaase???"

Yumi sighed. "Fine. I'll go out and get it for you."

"Yes!" Jeremie cheered, almost similar to a squealing fangirl, "Thank you thank you thank you!! Thank you so much!"

"You're welcome," Yumi said. She hung up, stepped into her slippers, and put on her robe to keep warm. It was still colder at night, even during summer. She took her cell phone outside with her, as Jeremie probably wanted to see pictures of what the meteorite looked like right after it landed, all smoking and glowing and such.

As Yumi stepped towards the meteorite, she noticed something odd about it. She had always thought they would be glowing orange when they were still hot. This one was glowing green. And it didn't look like a space rock. It was a perfect sphere, with a crease in the middle of it. Yumi grew worried. This definitely wasn't a meteorite. But what was it, then? One of XANA's creations? No, it had a strange hourglass symbol on it, not the eye of XANA. What could it be?

Yumi thought she'd better bring that thing to Jeremie. With any luck, he'd know what it was, or at least what to do with it. Yumi reached out to grab it.

She had no idea what she was about to start.

**

"It's gone!!" Ben repeated, "What do I do?! What do I do?!?!"

"Ben," said Grandpa, "Don't panic. We'll sort this out."

"Whoever broke in here last night must have taken the Omnitrix," said Gwen.

"Okay," said Ben, relaxing a little, "So who are we dealing with?"

"I'm checking the surveillance camera to find out," Grandpa said, typing away on the Rustbucket's computer. The screen started tracking, and a video began to play. Ben watched a figure step into the RV and walk towards him in his bed. The figure pulled a device from his belt (or her belt; it was hard to tell from the video's quality), used the device to take the Omnitrix from Ben, and left.

"So who was that?" Ben asked, "Vilgax, Animo, Kevin…?"

"I don't think it was Kevin," Gwen said, referring to the person's clearly humanoid structure.

"Just thinking out loud," said Ben. Why did she always have to act like such a stupid know-it-all?

"I'll increase the resolution," said Grandpa, clicking the mouse a few times.

"Why didn't you do that before?" asked Ben.

The picture grew clearer and clearer, and soon it became obvious who stole the Omnitrix from Ben.

"Enoch," said Gwen.

"The Forever Knights," said Ben, "That was gonna be my next guess."

"Of course it was," said Gwen.

"So now we go beat the heck out of Enoch until he gives it back?" asked Ben.

"No, Ben," said Grandpa, "That'd be a bit difficult since you can't go alien."

"But you have all your cool Plumber stuff!" Ben protested, "We can use that, right?"

"We could," said Grandpa, "But we're not going to."

"Well, why not?" asked Ben.

"We're not even sure Enoch still has the watch," said Gwen.

"But we saw him take it just now!"

"But if you look closer," said Grandpa, "You'll see that after Enoch left, he did something with the Omnitrix." He played the video again. "Look through the windows."

"What's that huge light?" Gwen asked.

"Teleport?" Ben guessed.

"No," said Grandpa, "If it was a teleport, he'd be gone. Look, he's still there." He paused the video. "See that up in the sky?"

"Yeah," said Ben, "It's a shooting star."

"Shooting stars aren't neon green, Ben," said Gwen.

"It was the Omnitrix," Grandpa explained, "Enoch was sending it somewhere."

"But I thought he wanted it," said Ben, "Why didn't he keep it?"

"We'll figure that out when we find the Omnitrix," Grandpa answered.

"How are we gonna do that?" asked Ben.

"I can track it down," said Grandpa.

"You can do that?" Ben asked.

"I put a tracking device on it," said Grandpa, "You didn't know that?"

"Never mind that," said Gwen, "Where is it now?"

An image of the Earth appeared onscreen, with a red blip on it. The image zoomed in to reveal the location of the Omnitrix.

"It's in France."

**

Yumi screamed as black goop shot out of the sphere at lightspeed and wrapped itself around her wrist. Was that thing about to chew off her hand? Yumi violently flailed her arm around, trying to fling it off of her. But no matter what she did, she couldn't get rid of it. Terrified, Yumi shut her eyes, preparing for the worst. Even if this wasn't XANA… Who knows what it could do to her? She felt a sharp pain, and she was sure this thing was some sort of parasite eating away at her skin. It wasn't going to stop.

Yumi opened her eyes and began pulling at it, but that only caused more pain. It didn't matter. She could take a little sting if it meant getting that thing off of her. But the more she pulled, the more it resisted. It started to solidify. Before Yumi knew it, the pain was gone and the creature that attacked her had become some sort of bracelet. She saw a dial on top with that same hourglass symbol on it, and there was a small green button on the front.

_I'm not gonna mess with it, _Yumi thought, _I'm just gonna wait until I get to Jeremie so he can figure out what to do…I'm not gonna mess with it…_

Yumi began reaching for the button, but slapped herself in the face before she could finish, reminding herself that only Odd would do something that stupid.

**

"France?!" Gwen squealed, "We're going to France?! As in Paris, France?! Home of the Eiffel Tower and some of the greatest food known to mankind?!"

"As in home of the mimes and the sick concept of serving snails as food?" Ben asked.

"Not Paris," said Grandpa, "Kadic City."

"Awww," Ben sneered, "Sorry, Gwen."

"Shut up," Gwen snapped.

"So how are we gonna find the watch?" Ben asked.

"I can't pinpoint its exact location," said Grandpa, "The street is about as specific as it gets. But it shouldn't be too hard. We can just ask if anything's fallen from the sky."

"Huh?" Ben asked, "But we don't speak French."

"We don't need to," said Grandpa, getting up and walking towards the closet, "The Plumbers gave me this piece of Gallifreyan tech. I've heard Gallifrey was a pretty nice planet. It's sad that it blew up." He pulled a round gold mechanism covered with strange alien etchings similar to clockwork out of the closet. "Here it is. It telepathically translates any language for everyone who's been exposed to it. Even if the people are speaking French, as long as you've been near it for a few minutes and it's still functioning somewhere, you'll hear English."

"And they'll hear French?" Gwen asked.

"Exactly," Grandpa answered.

"So…" Ben said, "I guess we're going on a road trip to France."

"Not quite," said Grandpa. He pressed some buttons near the steering wheel, and a bunch of weird controls came out of the dashboard. Gwen sat shotgun and buckled up, and Ben noticed a flashing sign that said "Fasten seat belts," and he did the same in the booth. He stared out the window as the Rustbucket slowly but surely rose from the ground.

"No way," Ben said, "Are we flying?!"

"No, Ben," Gwen retorted, "The ground is just falling."

"I knew there would be flying cars in the future!" Ben squealed excitedly, ignoring her smart remark.

"This isn't the future," said Gwen.

"It is if you look at it from five minutes ago."

"Do you always have to get the last word?"

"Uh… Yes!" Gwen rolled her eyes, and Ben stuck his head out the window as the Rustbucket went zooming off to France.

"This is awesome!!! Woo-hoo!!!"

**

"Jeremie?" Yumi asked over the phone as she began walking to his house.

"Did you get it?" Jeremie asked.

"Yeah…" Yumi said, staring at her wrist, "I got it… More like it got me…"

"Huh?" Jeremie asked.

"I don't know. Weird things are happening. I'm coming over."

"Right now?"

"Yeah. Right now."

"Why?"

"Whatever it was you saw definitely wasn't a space rock," Yumi explained.

"How do you know?"

"Because some kind of creature came out of it and attacked me! Now it's this weird-looking bracelet thing that I can't get off. It's like it's fused with my DNA. I don't know what's going on, but I need you to look at it to help me try and figure all this out."

"What? You think it's XANA?"

"Maybe," said Yumi, "Or maybe not. You can check for an activated tower to be sure, but whatever it is, we've got to get it off of me before something happens."

"Okay," said Jeremie, "But don't you think my parents would find it strange that you're coming here at 1 A.M.? We don't want to risk blowing our cover."

"Fair point. Meet me at the Hermitage, then. Maybe Aelita can give us a hand."

"Okay. See you there."

During the summer, Aelita had been staying at the Hermitage. Jeremie really wanted her to come stay at his house, but she had insisted that it would be better if she lived by herself, and that Jeremie's parents wouldn't be as open to the idea of her living with them as they had been of her joining them for the holidays. And so she and the rest of the gang fixed up the Hermitage so that she could live there.

Yumi thought that she should probably get Ulrich and Odd in on this, too. Ulrich lived a few hours away, so she wasn't entirely sure how he could get his parents to let him come here. Odd was easy to contact; he didn't take the plane home to America because he was staying at Kadic for summer school. Yumi decided she would call both of them later, when they were awake. And knowing Odd, that wouldn't be for quite a while…

**

"Are we there yet?" Ben asked.

"We're traveling overseas, Ben!" Gwen snapped, tired of her cousin's constant whining, "The trip will be long!"

"I'm bored!" Ben complained, "I can't help it!"

"Then entertain yourself," said Gwen.

"How am I supposed to do that when I don't have the Omnitrix to mess with?"

"Why don't you find something constructive to do, like read a book or something?"

"In what way is _reading_ constructive?"

"Oh, yeah," Gwen said, "I forgot. You can't read."

"What?! I can so read!"

"Then READ!"

"I don't want to!"

"Why not?"

"Reading is boring!" Ben whined.

"It's better than just whining to me about how bored you are!"

"YOU'RE boring!"

"You're obnoxious!"

"Are we there yet?"

"NO, BEN!!"

**

"So what do you think it is?" Yumi asked as Aelita and Jeremie examined the bracelet.

"I don't think it's XANA," said Aelita.

"Why do you say that?" Jeremie asked, "What else could it be?"

"Well…" Aelita said, with a slight hesitation, "This is gonna sound kind of crazy, but I have a theory. XANA's creations are usually machinery. But this… It looks partly organic. Like it's alive… Believe me or don't, but… What if it's alien?"

"What?" Jeremie asked, "Isn't that a bit far-fetched, Aelita?"

"But think about it," Aelita protested, "You already ran the superscan and there's no activated tower. So where did it come from? You thought it was a meteorite, didn't you? Even if it's not just a rock that fell to the Earth, it could still have come from another planet. This technology is way beyond Earth and way beyond XANA. Doesn't it make sense?"

"Aelita…" Jeremie said, shaking his head.

"Jeremie," said Yumi, "I think Aelita may be right."

"You, too, Yumi?" Jeremie asked, "Just listen to what you're saying!"

"But it's like this thing's a part of me now," Yumi insisted, "And all I did was touch it. It's like it was programmed to attach itself to the first person who does."

"And you think XANA can't do that?" asked Jeremie, "After everything you've seen him do, all his hyper-advanced robots? What makes you think that he's suddenly reached his limits?"

"XANA can't do _anything_ when he's not active," said Yumi, "There's no tower, so it can't be."

"Well, maybe he's done something to hide it," said Jeremie, "He could've put a bug in the superscan."

"Maybe," said Yumi, "But still… I think we need to explore all the possibilities."

"Well, before you jump to conclusions," said Jeremie, "We should find out exactly what it is."

"There's a button on it," said Yumi, "So it's supposed to do something."

"DO NOT TOUCH IT," Jeremie ordered.

"I'm not gonna touch it!" said Yumi, "I just wanna see if we can figure out what it does."

"And how would we do that?" Jeremie asked.

"In a super-clever-scientific way!" Yumi quoted, "I wouldn't understand!"

"There IS no super-clever-scientific way as far as my capacity goes!"

"Or mine," Aelita added.

"So what do we do with it?" Yumi asked.

"We try to get it off," said Jeremie.

"Yeah," Yumi scoffed, "Good luck with that."

"Maybe you can't do it with your bare hands," said Jeremie, "But if we just got some tools…"

**

Agent 42 impatiently drummed his fingers on his desk, waiting for his transmission to reach Enoch. He had been told that the Omnitrix would be given to the Men in Black by 1 A.M. It was almost two now, and it still wasn't there. He needed to have a little chat with Enoch to see if this was a failure or a betrayal.

Finally, Enoch's face began to appear onscreen.

"What is it you want?" Enoch asked.

"You said 0100, Enoch," 42 said, "Just where is the Omnitrix?"

"What?" Enoch asked, "You tell me you don't have it?"

"What does it sound like I'm trying to tell you?"

"Well, then," said Enoch, "I set the coordinates to your headquarters, so I don't see why it shouldn't be there."

"Well, evidently, it isn't. I trust this was a malfunction in the launch?"

"It seems so."

"Are you sure that's what it was, Enoch?"

"I don't believe I—"

"Don't give me that, Forever Knight," 42 hissed as though it were a curse, "I've seen you and your little band scheming day in and day out. You've made a poor effort in hiding that you want the Omnitrix for yourself. You're a purely independent organization. Now why on Earth did you agree to give us the Omnitrix unless it was all part of your plan?"

"Well…" said Enoch, "I must commend you for your logic. But we've made our decision to keep our end of the bargain. Project Deka benefits the both of us, wouldn't you agree? Giving you the Omnitrix is a small price to pay for what you could give us if you succeed."

"And what if we don't?"

"The Forever Knights have been hunting the Omnitrix for decades. If you fail, we could certainly find a way to take it back."

"Well, then if you haven't decided to keep it, then prove your loyalty and tell me where it is. You're the one who programmed its direction. Check your machine and see if it says where it really landed."

"Alright, then…"

After a few moments of waiting, Enoch finally came up with its location.

"I have good news and bad news," said Enoch.

"Of course you do," said 42, "The good news?"

"The good news is that I've pinpointed its position. It's relatively close to your area, Kadic City, to be precise. You can go and get it at any time."

"And the bad news is what?"

"The bad news… It's moving."

"What?!" 42 bellowed, "You mean to tell me that the Omnitrix has already found a new host?"

"Someone seems to have gotten to it first, I'm afraid."

"And just who would that be?"

"That I can't clarify."

"Never mind," 42 said harshly, "Kadic City, you said?"

"That is correct," Enoch replied.

"Then I believe I can narrow it down to five prime suspects…"

**Oooh… Five prime suspects… Now I wonder who they could be? If you don't know the answer, then, yeah… you're reading the wrong story… So Yumi got the Omnitrix and Ben's gonna go get it back… Wonder how he'll react when he hears her call it a bracelet. XD**

12


	3. Chapter 2

**I promised an update over break, and I give you one! HECK YEAH! XD Yeah, this past week wasn't as productive as I would have hoped. So far this is the only "dead" story I've revived. But maybe between today and tomorrow I'll have some other stories updated, too. Yeah, this is just a quick little bit. But it's something. Thank you for your patience!**

Chapter 2

"You know," Yumi said to Jeremie, who had just thrown his crowbar across the room, "I've heard insanity defined as trying the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

"That is not what I've been doing!" Jeremie snapped, "I used a screwdriver, a wrench, a drill, AND a crowbar! They're all totally different!"

"You're tired, aren't you?" Aelita asked casually, examining her fingernails.

"Clearly something's wrong," said Jeremie, ignoring her smart remark, "This has XANA written all over it."

Yumi frowned. "Does this look like XANA to you?" she asked, pointing to the hourglass symbol, "He signs everything he does, like it's some kind of art. And this clearly isn't his signature."

"It's a trick!" Jeremie yelled, "He just threw some other random symbol on it and bugged the superscan so we'd let our guard down! We don't go to Lyoko to deactivate the tower and instead we go on a wild goose chase to figure out where this came from, and then XANA uses that _thing_ to do who knows what to you!"

"What if you're wrong?" Yumi asked.

"What if I'm not?" Jeremie retorted.

"Why don't we split up, then?" Aelita interrupted, "You send Odd to Lyoko and try to find anything suspicious. Yumi and I will try to figure out whatever we can."

"And how do you expect to do that?" Jeremie asked, "Do you have any bright ideas?"

"There _is_ a button," Aelita replied.

Jeremie smacked himself in the face. "Aelita… Rule number one: Never, under any circumstances, do you push great big threatening buttons."

"Let's go back to my house, then," said Yumi, "Back to the place where it landed. If it wasn't XANA, then maybe it wasn't supposed to end up with me. And whoever put it there may be coming back for it."

"You do that if you want," said Jeremie, "I'm getting Odd."

Yumi scoffed. "Before noon?" she asked with a smirk, "Good luck with that."

"He'll wake up once we get to Lyoko," Jeremie responded. He made for the door, but stopped himself before opening it. He turned around and faced the girls.

"You know he's gonna push the button as soon as he sees you, right?" Jeremie asked them.

Yumi and Aelita nodded.

**Hehe, silly Odd. I think I have ideas as to where to go from here. But I don't know how long it'll take me – could be a few days, could be a few weeks, could be a few months. If it takes too long, I'm deeply sorry.**


End file.
